Halloween at DFSR

Last weekend the DFSR headquarters turned into a haunted house! Ghosts, witches and monsters were everywhere around the place. The reason: Our Inbound students travelled from everywhere in Germany to Heppenheim to celebrate a spooky Halloween party. Of course there was no better location for this event than our ancient DFSR basement.

After a joyful reunion the students moved into their rooms and got ready for the first activity - pumpkin carving, one of the most important Halloween traditions. There were no limits to the creativity of the designers and the results were really impressive.

The Pumpkin-Faces and other self-made decorations made the DFSR building and garden the perfect location for a Halloween party. Time was running out and the bright daylight changed into dusk. Our students went into their rooms to get dressed up for the party. As there was a costume contest taking place, everyone was very ambitious to look as spooky as possible. Find out for yourself:

Group Photos with all the monsters in the DFSR basement

All the handicraft work made everyone very hungry, so it was the perfect time to grab a bite. Fortunately our DFSR staff prepared a delicious Chili Con Carne, a Pumpkin Soup and Pumpkin Pie, much to the joy of all American students who felt at home when they tried the pie.

Here you find our secret Pumpkin Pie recipe:

For the dough                                                                                

200g flour                                                                         

1 teespoon of baking powder                                 

75g sugar                                                                          

1 pinch of salt                                                                 

100g margarine (cold)                                                                 

1 egg yolk                                          

2 table spoons of lemon juice                                                 

For the topping

700g Pumpkin Pod

180g sugar

1 teespoon of cinnamon

½ teespoon of ginger (powdered)

1 pinch of powdered clove

3 eggs

250g cream cheese (1 package)

Preparation:

For the dough you have to mix the flour, the baking powder, the sugar and the salt in a bowl. Add the cold margarine, the egg yolk and the lemon juice. Knead everything with a dough hook until the dough is crumbly and sticking together. Now you can use your hands to pinch it to a dough ball and then roll it out to a flat cake base. Put it into cling film and leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

For the topping: We suggest to use a Hokkaido Pumpkin because you can cook it with hull. Cut the pumpkin into little pieces, cook it and purée it. Mix the pumpkin squish with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, whipped eggs, one pinch of salt and cream cheese. Take the dough out of the fridge, put it into a greased spring form (26 cm) or a pie form and form the cake base with a high margin. Use a fork to stab into the dough several times.

Fill the pumpkin squish into the form, sleek it and put the cake into the heated oven (175g).  Leave it in the oven for 60-70 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven, leave it for 10 minutes and put it out of the form. When the cake is cooled down you can decorate it with powdered sugar and serve it with cream.

Yummy!!!

Doesn´t this look mouth-watering?

 After this delicious dinner it was finally time to shake a leg. The basement was crowded with students from all over the world who all know different types of dancing. This exchange of cultures made the evening into a very special event and we hope that all our inbound students enjoyed their time in Heppenheim. We are looking forward to having more exciting parties, excursions and activities together with them.

Students having fun on the dancefloor...

...performing different moves